Roxy Music - Roxy Music POLL

If there is something is three, three, three songs in one, and one of them is happy and one of them is funny and one of them is gentle and weltschmerzy and yet ladytron.

fuck me

If There Is Something

Side 1 of this record is one of the alltime greats. Side 2, not so much.

"The Bob" is pretty boring.

(i was waiting for someone to say this...)

actually, i found side 2 of this record quietly affecting...good headphone music for walking around yr rain-soaked hometown during cloudy days in autumn..youre right kornrulez second side does pale but not as much as conventional wisdom dictates...

however i think i just started another one of those lopsided polls again...damn i hate when i do that. at least the white light white heat poll will be pretty good...

I just listened to Chance Meeting; with all that harsh feedback interwoven it kinda reminds me of Can...

The Bob is great

fucking "Ladytron"

Has a debut album bust out of the gate with 3 better songs than these? I doubt it.

"If There Is Something" wins for me, by an eyelash's width, over "Ladytron" and "Re-Make/Re-Model."

Going for "If There Is Something". Great synth (oboe?) solo!

Whoever worried that VP would take it shamed me into voting RM/RM.

VP. Sorry, but it's really no contest.

yeah i had to vote for "Virginia Plain" as well.

Hey, I've actually done that song at karaoke!

The first 5 choices are all grand, and finding a karaoke guy who gets songs like "Virginia Plain" is a true find. Never leave him/her.

http://pencilgrinder.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/dixon-011.jpg

Remake/Remodel

Part of me really wants to vote for Sea Breezes, part for If There Is Something

ITIS seems to be pulling away a bit so Sea Breezes it is.

It bugs me so I'll get it out of my system: "Virginia Plain" was not on the album. It was included when this was rereleased on cd.

It's on my vinyl copy; always has been. (Maybe a US/UK thing?)

I think I like this one better than For Your Pleasure

Stranded is the best of all.

There has maybe never been a band that sounded as great as this band does on this album. Pure chaos and pure harmony. Glory be: Re-Make/Re-Model.

Stranded is the best of all.

supries Mother Of Pearl!

I prefer "Avalon". But learning to like the early stuff too. Particularly the first two with Eno.

"If There Is Something".

Does the recent remaster of this make it seem less flat and dry?

"If There Is Something" DOES contain probably my favourite moment of production ever, when the drums suddenly sound as if they're being played somewhere inside your ear, signalling move from prodigal sax-solo lament to closing victory chant. It's astoundingly subtle and incredibly effective.

'If There Is Something' is perhaps the best Roxy track ever. And kornrulez is right, side one is immense, side two is no so much.

Sea Breezes is probably the most absurdly bathetic descent from dead serious to completely and utterly ludicrous that's ever managed to keep a straight face in the history of music. It's completely transcendent; it explodes the artistic process and yet affirms it. Its balls are bigger than most bands'.

Barf

I think you're meant to be lulled into a state of placid unlistening neutrality by the first half of Sea Breezes; not that you're bored, just locked into place, not really engaging with the music. Thus when the second half kicks in, austere flute persisting beneath the chaos, it really does genuinely amaze.

Virginia Plain to my understanding was not on the original UK pressings, but was added on quickly thereafter as it was a top 10 hit in Britain at the time...something like that, anyways...

seems like voicing my worries abt VP dominating this poll (seems like every album poll I started lately has that one obv standout cut--or else has been completely given ILM's cold shoulder)* have been a sort of negative talisman, scattering would be votes for it onto the three songs before it...I mean VP is a great song, it deserves some votes...

*not true for Slates or White Light/White Heat

Does the recent remaster of this make it seem less flat and dry?

oh yes.

http://tbn2.google.com/images?q=tbn:PDgKoU7Lf4AG0M:http://images.tomshardware.com/2005/07/22/summer_cpl_2005/cpl-other-logo.jpghttp://media.peeron.com/pics/inv/setpics/5938-1.1121277958.thumb2.jpg

what's her name

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

"Would You Believe?" = hella underrated.

I'm surprised "Chance Meeting" got no votes -- I might have voted for it tonight. I used to own a bootleg from the mid seventies; it's just Ferry on electric piano and Manzanero on various effects boxes. Holy shit.

^i'm tellin ya as difficult as it is to vote for side 2 of this album is the shiznit...this is easily up there for me in the top 40 greatest albums of them all...

(the comma goes between 'for' and 'side', thereby shattering the rule that decrees that clauses shalt not be ended with dangling prepositions and suchwith etc blah)

*Manzanera

(gotta admit: i'm kinda filled with a warm gooey gladness somebody voted for bitters end...who was it? come forward. that's some challops w/ charm)

AHT LAST DA KHRIM-SHAN COHLD CAS-CADE...

I think I voted for "Re-Make/Re-Model." For the trademark stuttering Bryan Ferry vocal plus squealing horn and for the part with the song-quoting solos, which I guess they change up when playing live. When I saw them , instead of "Daytripper" the bass player, Zev Katz, played the James Bond Theme. The sax one on the record is "Ride Of The Valkyries," no?

The Bob is the worst Roxy song ever

I pretty much can't listen to any Roxy Music that's not on 'Roxy Music' and 'For Your Pleasure' (or early demos) except for a few singles and radio hits.
I dunno why, but that's just the way it is for me.

thats ok, it's like that for me as well.
the reason os called Brian Eno btw

anyone else hear musical similarities between the middle section of "If There Is Something":
"I would do anything for you/I would climb mountains/I would swim all the oceans blue/I would walk a thousand miles/Reveal my secrets/More than enough for me to share/I would put roses round our door/Sit in the garden/Growing potatoes by the score"
and the part of Joy Division's "New Dawn Fades" that goes:
"Different colours, different shades/Overreached, mistakes were made/I took the blame/Directionless so plain to see/A loaded gun won't set you free/So you say/We'll share a drink and step outside/An angry voice and one who cried/We'll give you everything and more/The strain's too much, can't take much more/I've walked on water, run through fire/Can't seem to feel it anymore"

I was impressed he took a moment to note Gustafson's contributions last night.

Where did he play, Josh? How was he?

Chicago maybe?

He actually was interviewed here at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Nothing revelatory, save perhaps an emphasis on Eric Bowman's cover photography, and that Manolo Blahnik is loitering in the background of the "Another Time, Another Place" shot; Bowman is also in drag in the "Hard Rain" video, and drag and blackface (!) playing piano here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYUpq2dTnnY

Ferry plays a special gala show here for the opening of the "Bowie Is" exhibit Saturday night, and plays a proper concert Sunday. I'll be at that one and will report back.

That seems very cool to me that BF is playing at the opening of the Bowie show.

Oh yeah, thanks for your response! I've heard he is rather a cold interview, unsurprisingly

This one is kinda entertaining:

http://pitchfork.com/features/5-10-15-20/9076-bryan-ferry/

The debonair 67-year-old former Roxy Music frontman on the music of his life: Charlie Parker, Otis Redding, Arcade Fire, Billie Holiday, Dylan, and more.

Oh snap, almost forgot, he did say he finished his new album last week! It's called "Avonmore." Out in November. Apparently Nile Rodgers and Johnny Marr on guitar, again, but there are usually a million guys on guitar. As he joked last night, it's funny to call them solo records, because they typically feature 50 different musicians.

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/tributes-merseyside-musician-john-gustafson-7800684

x-post re Gustafson, Roxy bassist for a bit

Phil sez Roxy Music more or less officially broken up, at least inasmuch as any band on hiatus is "broken up" until it tours or records:

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/roxy-music-break-up-20141103

Sounds pretty much over, though.

listening to this album for the first time ever

It's pretty good, you heard it here first.

Aye, listen to yer man, Josh, it's no' half bad.

whoa thats crazy crut. what do you think?

it's great! crazy to think it was 1972. a lot of it sounds more like 1977. i guess the reasons for that are self-explanatory.

Because the band traveled back from the future to entertain us.

I tried searching, but I've no idea what the leading Roxy Music thread is. And the following video is probably ten times on here already, too. But god damn I just saw this OGWT video for the first time tomorrow and whoa... What a performance. Absolutely mesmerizing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G56DaSAeZfM

that seems to be the album audio.

... but the performance! Ferry's stare! Deadpan delivery! His quiff! Eno's I'm-outta-here-real-soon coolness!

I'd never seen this performance!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZQu8q8xnfE

Yeah, it's maximum tense trebly coke Roxy at their peak.

I always thought the line in "Love is the Drug" was "I say coke, she says yes."

Ooh, I haven't seen this either, first couple minutes look amazing!

Ferry's eyebrows in this are terrifying.

I wonder if this was the tour where Wire supported them and which was such a horrible depressing experience for Wire it, indirectly, led to the dissolution of the band.

Never heard of such a tour, interesting

ferry’s got serious mr spock brows in this, wow

I was listening to "Manifesto" yesterday, and man, the bassist is killing it. Reminded me a lot of the playing on "Lexicon of Love," but I don't recognize the name of this guy or that guy (even though this guy did eventually record with a post-"Lexicon" version of ABC).

It isn't Gary Tibbs?

Alan Spenner. Played on some early Joe Cocker records and with Spooky Tooth, among many others. Died really young.

I think he was an old UK session lag who played with absolutely everyone.

This is obviously a joke, but everyone in the comments seems to be taking it seriously for some reason.
Anyway, made me laugh.

Whoops! pic.twitter.com/lYcVdDoLZ4

— Chris Frantz (@ChrisFrantzTTC) April 1, 2021

There is no reason I necessarily should have seen this photo, but I've never seen it and think it's cool:

https://scontent-ort2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.6435-9/196499509_10158402786553727_2093643259837767448_n.jpg?_nc_cat=100&ccb=1-3&_nc_sid=730e14&_nc_ohc=clEWq-ohnIUAX--wSJC&tn=ORcsky-MBznsY1T7&_nc_ht=scontent-ort2-1.xx&oh=403446714dcdb53271e8d18631aed54b&oe=60E9E998

That was definitely one of my favorite Tiny Desk concerts.

Looool!

Sounding glorious tonight. Listening to the Peel Session version of If There Is Something and getting that weird timeslip feeling that this could, with some of the right drugs, been on Abbey Road and Fear of Music.

So ahead of their time. Still ahead of their time.

I'm really torn about shelling out for the tour. I've seen Ferry several times and Roxy once. I have no expectations this tour will be any better than those, but I also feel that it could be the final tour for, well, any of them, and I love them, so ...

They've been having trouble selling out here in NYC, so much that I have no doubt a lot of those seats will remain unsold, moreso than the Who show at the same venue 7 weeks ago. And if it's anything like that Who show, you could wait four hours before show time and grab a ticket for a fraction of the price.

That may be my plan. Market is oversaturated with big ticket tours right now, and not sure Roxy has what it takes to cut through the noise and fill an arena.

has the long july 1972 bbc version of "if there is something" ever been released officially? it is _so good_, one of my favorite roxy recordings ever, and they went and left it off the deluxe reish. i'd love to hear it in non-bootleg sound quality...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqtzZaXt89A

Wow!

It it the algorithm or is there suddenly a lot of new great footage their first phase turning up now?

The upload dates are all recent, though I noticed a few being taken down so it could be re-uploads of stuff that's been out there for a while.